To the Caucasus Bureau

Dear Comrades! We have received your statement. We do not know what the bureau wrote. We shall communicate what we know. In due course we sent you the resolutions of the conference of the southern committees and the reply of the participants of the conference of the 22nd. We shall make a small correction to your indication that the southern committees proposed to assign to the group of the 22nd

* The address and final phrase are published for the first time. Ed.

from its midst the composition of the bureau of the majority committees. They proposed to indicate in general the comrades who, in the opinion of the participants of the conference of the 22nd, were fit for the bureau. From the reply of the participants of the conference of the 22nd it is evident that they in no way considered themselves entitled to take upon themselves the "appointment" and, in proposing a list, asked the committees to alter or supplement it at their discretion. Did you not receive this letter? The southern comrades looked at the matter in the same way, as, disagreeing with the proposed composition, they proposed Ryadovoy and Zemlyachka for the bureau (a small note: all the proposed candidates, except 2, are in Russia, and one of them has only just returned from Russia and is going back there again). As far as we know, their choice coincided with the choice of the Caucasus Bureau.

But these persons did not consider themselves entitled to undertake any steps before the conference of the northern committees, which has already taken place. Here is its resolution*. Thus for the congress and the formation of the bureau of the majority committees there spoke out (4 Caucasus committees + 3 southern + 6 northern) that is, 13 committees. As you see, everything is being done to enable the Russian committees to come to an understanding. Besides these 13, other committees also spoke out for the congress, the Central Committee itself acknowledges that 16 committees have already spoken out for the congress, but it declares that now 19 committees are needed for the congress (this was stated to the Odessa committee).

In any case, the majority committees must hurry to organize themselves. In the next few days you will receive documents from which you will see what the beginning of the negotiations between the Central Committee and the minority was like and what these negotiations came to: the preservation for the minority of autonomy of the technical institutions and co-optation (for now unofficial) into the Central Committee of three of the most ardent Mensheviks, whose co-optation into the Central Committee the minority had been demanding from the very beginning. The Mensheviks began to take charge. Proof of this is the Petersburg affair.

The workers were striving directly for a demonstration, the committee appointed the demonstration for the 28th, but in many districts the organizers were Mensheviks (the Petersburg Committee considered it impossi-

* The text of the resolution is not given. Ed.